The Way of Things
by Alexa Piper
Summary: Visitors can only stay in Night Vale for so long before their resident status is made a little more... permanent. Cecilos. Moving tattoos headcanon.


The tea was perfect. Carlos took another sip, smiling as Cecil continued to speak in that melted-chocolate voice about Khoshekh's eyes and how they had changed colours numerous times over the past few days. Probably just the difference in lighting through the tiny bathroom window, but the scientist had half a mind to head over there that night and check it out. He wouldn't find any answers; that much had become obvious through his various investigations into this town's peculiarities. However, the excursion would satisfy his urge to collect data, even if there were never any logical scientific conclusions.

"Would you like another cup?" the impossibly gorgeous voice enquired.

"No thanks, this one's still half full."

Cecil returned Carlos' smile with a brilliant grin. "Do you like it?"

The scientist blinked, mentally shaking himself as he dragged suddenly swimming eyes away from the haze that seemed to cover his lover's teeth. "Yeah, it's amazing," he whispered, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment in order to clear his spinning head.

The haze had appeared without warning several days prior was something that Carlos was still getting used to. It lurked around unexpected corners, slightly blurry when viewed side-on but dazzling in its eye-watering confusion when looked at properly. Carlos hypothesised that the haze was his brain scrambling what he viewed, but as of yet had been unable to experiment.

"Your team of scientists left, didn't they?"

The man sighed, glancing at his friend's face whilst avoiding the hazy spot that sat in the middle of Cecil's forehead. "Yesterday morning," he grumbled. "They were frustrated that no matter what we did, there were never conclusive results. In fact, most of the time there weren't results at all…"

Cecil shrugged with that maddening smile of his, shifting from his radio voice to the carefree, melodic speech reserved for casual conversations late at night. "Results are usually wrong anyway. What about you?"

"I'm staying," Carlos announced.

"Visitors can only stay so long."

The scientist raised an eyebrow at his boyfriend's comment. "Are you telling me that I have to leave, Cecil Baldwin? I care too much to go, not without figuring out why this place is so peculiar! I'm not going to leave you here when so many things could easily kill you!"

The radio host gave a little gasp, throwing his arms around Carlos' shoulders. "I care about you as well. But guests can't stay forever, and if you don't leave soon, if only for a little while…"

"What?" Carlos prompted at the other's hesitation.

"Are you scared of anything?"

Pulling back, the man shrugged. "Not really. I mean, I'd be scared if someone or something attacked me, and I'm scared of losing you. But I don't have a major phobia or anything."

"I'm scared," the extraordinarily pale man responded, "that you won't always be able to return my calls. It's not just the Secret Police – the Hooded Figures don't condone visitors that overstay their welcome, or visitors that get too curious."

"Well, I've got to be one of the most curious people in existence, so I doubt anything I could do would upset them now."

Cecil shifted. "Yes, well, so long as you don't actually _voice_ any observations that you might make."

Carlos blinked again as the haze moved along with his friend. "Um, Cecil…"

"Don't," the other advised. "If you question things, they might actually answer, and then where would we be?"

"I was actually going to compliment you on your new tattoos. They weren't there when we saw each other last week…" he trailed off, frowning at the sheer panic on the radio host's face.

"You can see…?" Cecil breathed. "What else…?"

"What do you mean? Of course I can-" the haze that had been hovering around his friend's arms and torso suddenly shot forwards, something smooth and solid clamping over Carlos' mouth. He started, eyes almost crossing as the scientist glanced down.

There was nothing but hazy air, and his head spun as this somehow invisible thing covered his mouth and cut off the rest of his words. Carlos shuddered as his skin and eyes sent conflicting messages to his brain, and for a moment the world went black.

Sight returned in a matter of seconds, the scientist rapidly blinking his streaming eyes as everything finally snapped into focus.

Cecil's hands were fluttering through the air, one still brandishing an empty teacup as he tried to figure out what to do with his friend. The tattoos – oh, _hell, _the tattoos were peeling off the man's unnaturally pale skin and morphing into pine-green _tentacles,_ one of which was still clamped over Carlos' mouth. The haze was gone, and before he could stop himself, Carlos glanced at his lover's face.

Fangs. The haze over Cecil's teeth had been hiding a gleaming set of vampiresque fangs, and that spot on his forehead…

Cecil's sketchy tattoo of an eye twitched before blinking, its pupil locking onto Carlos' gaze.

The radio host stiffened. "Oh, _Carlos,_" he breathed, as though something truly bad had happened. The tentacle moved away, another one straightening the scientist's glasses before slithering back to their tattoo forms on Cecil's exposed forearms.

"What's going on?!" Carlos screeched, throwing himself backwards and causing the chair he was in to topple over.

"Only permanent citizens of Night Vale can see," he responded in a sorrowful tone. "Have things been a bit blurry for you lately?"

Carlos shivered at the unusual level of emotion in his friend's voice. His tongue seemed to stop working, and all the scientist could do was stare silently as the door disintegrated in its frame, falling into a fine pile of ash that the Hooded Figure stepped over without missing a beat.

…

Carlos supposed that tattoo parlours usually didn't restrain their customers. That being said, he wasn't exactly a customer, and this didn't feel like an ordinary tattoo parlour. His glasses were gone, and the leather straps were fastened tightly around his legs, arms, and chest, effectively holding the scientist in place.

A person swathed in black fabric painstakingly inked little designs across the captive man's arms, the brush tickling with its gentle touch. Another Hooded Figure held Carlos' mouth open so one of its companions could do something to the scientist's _teeth. _Carlos had given up on trying to speak a little while ago, and flinched as ink was applied to the sides of his torso and abdomen.

The inked designs were different from Cecil's, and Carlos could only wonder what they meant. The figures inking him referred to thick books every couple of seconds, painstakingly measuring with rulers and compasses before allowing their brushes to come in contact with his skin.

With nothing else to do, the captive cast his mind back to that hellish thing in his office. _Cecil_ was that thing, complete with tentacles and fangs and a third eye that seemed to bore into your soul. If the radio host's reaction was anything to go by, he had always been like that, but Carlos' tourist status had somehow veiled this sight. Tentacles trapped in tattoos, and an eye that was so inhuman…

The figures had drawn back, and Carlos couldn't suppress a shudder. His mouth was still held open to protect the freezing gel that currently coated his teeth, and then they moved forwards again, needles pressing into his mouth, arms, and sides.

The man's eyes shot wide open and he screamed for all he was worth, the sound welling up from somewhere deep within him as the glowing violet ink was slowly integrated with his body. As each new tattoo in the pattern was made permanent, pain bloomed from the spot, sinking deep into Carlos' body and tearing new cries from his chest.

In the wake of the needles, something began to form.

…

Carlos blinked bleary eyes, frowning at the unfamiliar ceiling. Despite his sleep, the man felt weariness seep through his bones. Deciding that the matter of the unrecognisable plaster overhead could be postponed for now, the scientist yawned so wide that his jaw cracked.

Pain tore through his mouth, and the man gasped. Trying to remember what had happened before he fell asleep, Carlos ran the tips of his fingers over stinging teeth. Lifting his arm immediately hurt, and in his mouth… Carlos' breathing hitched as his fingers traced the edges of a set of very sharp fangs. _What the hell is going on?!_ His mind felt like it was stuck in treacle, and the man moaned again, letting his aching arm drop back to rest by his side.

"Carlos?!"

The muffled voice sounded worried, and Carlos wondered why.

"Carlos, where are you?"

Sunlight and a burst of heat streamed into the room as a door was thrown open, and he flinched at this unexpected assault on sleepy eyes.

That wonderful voice's exclamations morphed into a shriek. "_Carlos!_ Oh, no… Carlos, please, please be alright!"

Such raw emotion sounded strange in that perfect voice, and Carlos would have told the speaker just that if he could only get his mouth to work.

"Okay, just lie there, it's going to be okay," the voice promised, and hands entered Carlos' field of vision. One propped his head up, the other gently pressing a glass of water to chapped lips.

"Cecil," the scientist breathed after several mouthfuls, his mind finally supplying a name for that extraordinary voice.

"Thank goodness," Cecil responded in what sounded suspiciously like a sob.

Carlos tried to move his arms to wrap around his lover, but as he did so everything around him seemed to _shift – _pain ripped through his arms and sides, and the man shrieked, bolting into a sitting position and trying to wrap burning arms around himself. "_Cecil?!_"

The radio host simply rubbed Carlos' back, which did nothing to calm the poor man down. "Help!" Carlos screeched, arching his spine as his flesh tore and bones snapped.

"What absolutely perfect wings," the long-time resident of Night Vale remarked as he continued to rub circles into his trembling lover's back.

Dread twisted through Carlos' gut as he looked down and screamed.

"Shhh," Cecil soothed, a tentacle slithering to life from one of his forearms and clamping over his boyfriend's mouth. Carlos could only send the man a terrified stare, and tears began to stream down the scientist's cheeks.

"They're just a couple of wings," Cecil whispered. "Imagine how frightened I was when I grew these tentacles, and I didn't have a wonderful boyfriend to hold me and promise that everything would be alright."

The wings _were_ gorgeous. Carlos' arms had morphed into a set similar to those of a bat, their membranes meeting his sides there a line of tattoos had originally resided. They were covered in tiny violet hairs, and the royal purple membranes looked lilac when stretched against the light. Not quite ready to address these different appendages, the sniffling scientist leaned into his lover's embrace. "You weren't always here?" he mumbled around the tentacle.

"Nobody was, except maybe the Hooded Figures. Even the Sheriff's Secret Police's various members all made their way here at some point in their lives. People just wander in from the desert, either in cars or on foot, and decide to stay for a while. Some, like your scientists, decide that the isolation and desert heat isn't for them. There are others, like you, who find that there's something here that matters to them, and then they usually rent one of the vacant houses and settle down after being subjected to the compulsory tattooing service of the Hooded Figures. I was fifteen myself, and completely alone."

"Hmm," Carlos murmured, pressing his tears into his lover's shoulder. He should be questioning that explanation, he knew, but the questions just wouldn't come. "I guess I'm here to stay for good now, right?"

"Residents don't leave Night Vale without something bad happening to them. Look at Telly, after all."

"What about playing sports against Desert Bluffs, or holidaying to England?"

Cecil was stroking Carlos' hair, fingernails sending small shivers down the man's spine as they scraped gently against his scalp. "The Hooded Figures allow that."

"Where are we, anyway?" Carlos whispered, squinting into the gloomy room. "I need my glasses…"

"They're back at my house, along with your belongings. Residents are not allowed to stay in the town's guest cottages, after all. We're still at the tattoo parlour right now, and you happen to have been lying unconscious on the floor for the past who knows how long. The Hooded Figures took you at about midnight last night, and it's almost five in the afternoon. I couldn't enter the building until they left a few minutes ago."

"You've been waiting outside, haven't you?"

"Of course I have! Why?"

"You're sunburned," Carlos teased, flexing his new wings. "How do I turn these back into arms?"

"It's your first transformation, so you just have to wait for them to change on their own. When you start education tomorrow, one of the first things you will learn is how to use your tattoos."

Carlos moaned, shoving his nose into the crook of his boyfriend's neck as arms and tentacles wrapped gently around him. Cecil hummed, stroking the scientist's hair. "We should probably get you something to eat."

"Dare I ask where?" Carlos mumbled, squirming in an attempt to pull free.

Cecil's smile was dazzling, and he nuzzled contentedly into Carlos' shoulder. "Where else but Big Rico's? Then you can come rest in the studio while I do the evening show before we go home!"

"Cecil?"

"Hmm?"

"If you want me to stand up, you kind of have to let me go."


End file.
